'I don't know what you want me to do!'
It was almost a wail. Moist patted him on the shoulder.
'Run the bank, like you always have. I think we should set up some loans, with all this cash coming in. Are you a good judge of character?'
'I thought I was,' said Bent. 'Now? I have no idea. Sir Joshua, I am sorry to say, was not. Mrs Lavish was very, very good, in my opinion.'
'Better than you could possibly know,' said Moist. 'Good. I shall take the chairman for his walkies, and then... we'll spread some money around. How about that?'
Mr Bent shuddered.
The Times did an early-afternoon edition with a big picture on the front page of the queue winding out of the bank. Most of the queue wanted to get in on the act, whatever the act turned out to be, and the rest were queueing on the basis that there might be something interesting at the other end. There was a boy selling the paper, and people were buying it to read the story entitled 'Huge Queue Swamps Bank', which seemed a bit odd to Moist. They were in the queue, weren't they? Was it only real if they read about it?
'There are already some... people wishing to enquire about loans, sir,' said Bent, behind him. 'I suggest you let me deal with them.'
'No, we will, Mr Bent,' said Moist, turning away from the window. 'Show them into the downstairs office, please.'
'I really think you should leave this to me, sir. Some of them are rather new to the idea of banking,' Bent persisted. 'In fact I don't think some of them have ever been in a bank before, except perhaps during the hours of darkness.'
'I would like you to be present, of course, but I will make the final decision,' said Moist, as loftily as he could manage. 'Aided by the chairman, naturally.'
"Mr Fusspot?
'Oh yes.'
'He is an expert judge, is he?'
'Oh, yes!'
Moist picked up the dog and headed for the office. He could feel the chief cashier glaring at his back.
Bent had been right. Some of the people waiting hopefully to see him about a loan were thinking in terms of a couple of dollars until Friday. They were easy enough to deal with. And then there were others...
'Mr Dibbler, isn't it?' said Moist. He knew it was, but you had to speak like that when you sat behind a desk.
'That's right, sir, man and boy,' said Mr Dibbler, who had a permanently eager, rodent-like cast to his countenance. 'I could be someone else if you like.'
'And you sell pork pies, sausages, rat-on-a-stick...'
'Er, I purvey them, sir,' Dibbler corrected him, 'on account of being a purveyor.'
Moist looked at him over the paperwork. Claude Maximillian Overton Transpire Dibbler, a name bigger than the man himself. Everyone knew C. M. O. T. Dibbler. He sold pies and sausages off a tray, usually to people who were the worse for drink who then became the worse for pies.
Moist had eaten the odd pork pie and occasional sausage in a bun, however, and that very fact interested him. There was something about the stuff that drove you back for more. There had to be some secret ingredient, or maybe the brain just didn't believe what the taste buds told it, and wanted to feel once again that flood of hot, greasy, not entirely organic, slightly crunchy substances surfing across the tongue. So you bought another one.
And, it had to be said, there were times when a Dibbler sausage in a bun was just what you wanted. Sad, yet true. Everyone had moments like that. Life brought you so low that for a vital few seconds that charivari of strange greases and worrying textures was your only friend in all the world.
'Do you have an account with us, Mr Dibbler?'
'Yessir, thankyousir,' said Dibbler, who had refused an invitation to put down his tray and sat with it held defensively in front of him. The bank seemed to make the streetwise trader nervous. Of course, it was meant to. That was the reason for all the pillars and marble. They were there to make you feel out of place.
'Mr Dibbler has opened an account with five dollars,' said Bent.
'And I have brought along a sausage for your little doggie,' said Dibbler.
'Why do you need a loan, Mr Dibbler?' said Moist, watching Mr Fusspot sniff the sausage carefully.
'I want to expand the business, sir,' said Dibbler.